NBA: Boston Celtics' Brandon Bass fishing for more playing time

This wasn’t exactly what Brandon Bass had in mind when he signed a three-year, $20-million contract extension with the Celtics last summer.

As Celtics coach Doc Rivers continues to blend Jeff Green, Chris Wilcox and rookie Jared Sullinger into the rotation up front, Bass is playing and producing less than last season.

“He’s been up and down, but mostly up,” Rivers said. “I think his effort’s been great, his rebounding has really improved this year. He still has to get better with the defensive rotation, but he plays hard and that’s all we can ask of him and he’s doing that.”

Bass’ first season in Boston last year was the best of his eight in the NBA. The 6-foot-8 power forward averaged 12.5 points and 6.2 rebounds in 31.7 minutes, all career highs. This year, entering last night, he had dropped to 9.3 points, 5.6 rebounds and 27.6 minutes. Last year, he shot 47.9 percent, but this year he’s shooting only 45.3 percent, his lowest since his second year in the league, when he played only 21 games for New Orleans. He played only three of the final 21 minutes in an overtime loss at Philadelphia Friday, with Green playing well.

Bass wouldn’t admit at the time that he was upset, but his confidence must have been shaken when Rivers started Sullinger ahead of him early in the season. Sullinger didn’t score enough to stay in the starting lineup so Bass regained his old job. Bass has not complained about not playing as much this season and he’s done his best to stay positive.

“When adversity hits, you just keep going,” Bass said. “You’re right, things haven’t been perfect for me, things haven’t been like they were last year, but I’ll just keep going and hopefully it will turn out to be better than it was last year for me and for the team.”

Bass is undersized for a power forward, but Nets coach Avery Johnson said he considers Bass to be the Celtics center even though Kevin Garnett is officially listed at that position. So Bass gives up even more size in the pivot.

Bass believes he has the ability to take the ball to the hoop, but Rivers would rather he stick to being a mid-range shooter. What the Celtics really need up front, however, is a proficient rebounder because they rank last in the league in rebounding. Despite taking a lot of jump shots, Bass leads the team with 1.8 offensive rebounds a game, but he’s not a big bruiser underneath.

Sullinger has great hands, but getting to the ball can be a problem because he looks shorter than his listed height of 6-9 and he’s not a great leaper. He’s second on the team in offensive rebounds (1.5), but averages only 4.7 rebounds overall. Rajon Rondo, who is only 6-1, averages 4.9.

Green, also listed at 6-9, has never been a good rebounder, averaging only 5.4 in his five NBA seasons with a career-high 6.7 in 36.8 minutes a game with Oklahoma City in 2008-09. This year, coming off heart surgery, he’s averaging a career-low 3.1.

The 6-10 Wilcox, also coming off heart surgery, is averaging only 2.2 rebounds, the fewest in his 11 NBA seasons, but averages less than 13 minutes.

Bass’s dip in minutes and production wouldn’t matter if others produced in his place and the Celtics were winning more games, but no one has excelled off the bench and the team has hovered around .500.

Boston fans still feel indebted to former Celtics star Kevin McHale for trading Kevin Garnett here, but not every deal McHale made backfired.

One of his last moves as general manager of the Minnesota Timberwolves was acquiring Kevin Love on draft night in 2008 from Memphis for O.J. Mayo. Other players were involved in the deal, including current Celtic Jason Collins going to Minnesota and former Celtic Antoine Walker going to Memphis, but Love and Mayo were the key players.

After signing as a free agent with Dallas last summer, Mayo is averaging 19.8 points, 4.3 above his career average, and shooting a career-high 51 percent, but he’s still not the same caliber of player that Love is.

Two years ago, Love led the league with a franchise-record 15.2 rebounds a game and was voted the NBA’s Most Improved Player. Last season, he averaged 26 points a game to set another franchise record and rank fourth in the league and was voted second-team All-NBA. Both times Love eclipsed franchise records that Garnett set when he averaged 24.2 points and 13.9 rebounds during his NBA MVP season of 2003-04.

This year, the 6-foot-10 forward hasn’t maintained his lofty standards. Love missed the first nine games after breaking his right hand, doing knuckle pushups believe it or not, and while he’s still rebounding at a high rate, 14.2 a game to rank second in the league to Cleveland’s Anderson Varejao, his scoring average has dropped to 21.2 points. He’s also shooting only 38.2 percent overall and 21.6 percent from threeland, far below his percentages of 44.8 and 37.2 last season. After making only 6 of 15 shots and 6 of 12 free throws in a 104-94 loss at Boston Wednesday, Love admitted his hand is still bothering him.

“I think that a lot of it is me getting my legs back,” Love said, “but when I shoot it feels like the ball is coming off the outside of my hand rather than these two fingers, where I like it.”

Love has been through this before. He broke his other hand during preseason in 2009 and missed the first 18 regular-season games. On Friday, he scored a season-high 36 points in a win over Cleveland.

“I think it’s touch,” he said. “You know I’ve been shooting the ball for what, 18 years of my life now? It’s just the hand being so idle and having to strengthen and getting the ball to feel right in my hand has been such a struggle.”

Love didn’t lose his rebounding touch.

Rivers compared Love to his former teammate with the Spurs, Dennis Rodman, who led the NBA in rebounding for seven consecutive years in the 1990s.

“They study the game,” Rivers said, “they have great instincts, they have great body position. He does it completely different than Dennis did it. Dennis, especially late in his career, didn’t jump as much, so you just watched how they got their body position all the time. I watched Kevin this summer and I said it during the Olympic coverage that he reminds me a lot of that because they make breaks before the ball hits the rim. It’s like they know where the ball is going. It’s instinct, it’s probably a lot of film watching.

“The great rebounders were great rebounders in college, great rebounders in high school. They just have a great nose for the ball.”

Love’s father, Stan, was a 6-9 forward who played four years in the 1970s in the NBA with the Baltimore Bullets and Los Angeles Lakers, but he didn’t play much and he never averaged more than 4.6 rebounds a game.

More than five years after the Celtics acquired him from Minnesota, Garnett is still a productive player in Boston, averaging 15.8 points and 7.6 rebounds despite averaging only 29 minutes a game.

On the other hand, all the Timberwolves have left from the July 31, 2007 deal are reserve forwards Chase Budinger and Dante Cunningham. Both were acquired for players involved in the original deal. Budinger, 24, averaged 11.8 points and 3.5 rebounds before suffering a knee injury on Nov. 10 and is expected to be sidelined for three to four months. Cunningham, 25, averages 7.9 points and 5.1 rebounds.

The Celtics acquired Garnett for Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Sebastian Telfair, Gerald Green, Theo Ratliff, cash, the Celtics’ first-round pick in 2009 and another first-round pick in 2009 that Minnesota had sent to Boston in the 2006 Ricky Davis-Wally Szczerbiak deal.

Minnesota waived Ratliff and he’s no longer in the league. Green was dealt to Houston the following February for Kirk Snyder and Snyder is no longer in the league.

Telfair was traded to the Clippers in July of 2009 for Quentin Richardson, who was sent a month later to Miami for ex-Celtic Mark Blount. The Timberwolves waived Blount the following March.

Gomes was traded to Portland in June of 2010 for Martell Webster, who was waived last July. Webster is with the Wizards now. Gomes is playing in Germany.

Minnesota drafted Wayne Ellington with one of those two first-round picks and traded him last July for Cunningham. Jonny Flynn was taken with the other pick, but he was traded to Houston on draft night in 2011 for Brad Miller and Nikola Mirotic, neither of whom is in the league any more.

Jefferson was the key to the deal for Minnesota, but he tore the ACL in his right knee in his second season with the Timberwolves and they dealt him to Utah in June of 2010 for Kosta Koufos and two first-round picks. Koufos was dealt the following February to Denver for Eddy Curry, who was waived soon afterward, and Anthony Randolph, who returned to Denver as a free agent last summer.

Minnesota dealt one of the first-round picks to Houston for Budinger and Lior Eliyahu, who is playing in Israel.

If all that was too difficult to follow, here’s a way to simplify things: It continues to be a great trade for Boston and a lousy one for Minnesota. The Celtics won an NBA championship in their first year with Garnett, reached the NBA Finals in 2010 and were one victory away from returning to the NBA Finals last season. On the other hand, Minnesota hasn’t made the playoffs since 2004.